The communications industry is rapidly changing to adjust to emerging technologies and ever increasing customer demand. This customer demand for new applications and increased performance of existing applications is driving communications network and system providers to employ networks and systems having greater speed and capacity (e.g., greater bandwidth). In trying to achieve these goals, a common approach taken by many communications providers is to use packet switching technology.
A ring network is a network topology in which each network node connects to exactly two other nodes, forming a single continuous pathway for signals through each node. Data travels from node to node, with each node along the way handling every packet.